Garage collapses at famed Watergate; one person injured

By Emily Stephenson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three floors of a parking garage at the Watergate complex in Washington collapsed on Friday, sandwiching two vehicles and causing minor injuries to one person, local authorities and media reports said. The structure suffered a "pancake collapse," according to Washington firefighters. That is a type of collapse in which one floor falls, causing other levels to go down, too. The Watergate complex became famous as the site of the 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters, an incident that led to a political scandal that culminated in the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The Watergate was undergoing renovations, and a city official said construction crews were on site at the time. "So far, everybody is accounted for," but crews were still searching for other possible victims, Oscar Mendez, a spokesman for the D.C. Fire and EMS Department, said on Friday afternoon. One person was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, he said, and another was checked but decided not to go to a hospital. Mendez said the department did not have any more information about what caused the collapse. Emergency crews were working to shore up the structure on Friday so that rescue crews could conduct their work, a city official said in an email earlier in the afternoon. DC Fire said it had called in search-and-rescue K9 dogs from nearby Maryland. Mendez said emergency crews were dispatched around 10:00 a.m. (1400 GMT) to the complex, which is several blocks from the U.S. State Department. D.C. Fire said a nearby road had been closed, and local radio station WTOP said the complex was evacuated. (Reporting by Emily Stephenson; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Bernadette Baum and Lisa Von Ahn)